Eternal Creation

Oil and acrylic on raw canvas, 51 X 72 inches,  2008

Eternal Creation was begun on my 35th birthday while working on the New World Mural in the now demolished Champion Building at Modesto Junior College.  The subject and content of this painting were not preconceived, but came out the accidental placement of a water bucket on the wet raw canvas that left a circular mark on it.  I treated the initial acrylic layer like watercolor letting the color run on the wet surface to develop the general arrangement of the composition in soft transparent washes of pure colors.  The main circle was enlarged and a second larger  one was drawn around it.  The cloud forms were developed out of the initial acrylic stains and the biological elements and surface of the sphere were completed in oil.  Using Liquin as the medium, I glazed the entire surface with oil paints to produce soft atmospheric effects.  Bringing together cosmological and biological elements in a single composition was suggested through readings on the possible inter-stellar origins of life.